Good drizzle & bad drizzle

This morning, I still had a souvenir of last night’s FCBG meeting (see yesterday’s blog here) on my hotel room desk:

Oxford CBG lemon drizzle cake

Somehow I had managed not to eat it overnight, but what a treat I had in store. It was a triumph of lemon & drizzle. So much for indoors. Outdoors, the drizzle was rather less lovely. It was more than drizzle, for a start – it was torrential rain. Rain so torrential that many roads were flooded and poor Fay Sinai from the Oxford CBG, who had kindly volunteered to pick us up (that’s Liz Scott & me) & take us to the first event of the day, spent, overall, over 2 hours in the car from 7.30a.m. in flood- & accident-related traffic jams just to get us there, never mind back again… (Thank you Fay for your cheerful fortitude!)

However, get there we did, and our first stop was at Wood Green School in Witney, where librarians Val Donaghue & Judith Bovington had made a fab display (thank you both!)…

…and had brought together an audience made up of their own Year 8s, along with visiting groups of Year 6s from two local junior schools, Blake School and Madley Brook School. Together they made a lovely hall-full & were a fantastic audience.

After the talk, there was time for signing books and chatting with some of the students one-to-one – my favourite bit! – including Sophie, Georgie & Rubie from Wood Green:

(l-r) Sophie, me, Georgie & Rubie

Then Liz, Fay & I had a quick coffee & chat with Val & Judith – who had organised the visit so brilliantly, & hadn’t even turned a hair when, due to the road problems, we’d turned up at the school with just one minute to go before the talk was due to start… We found all the IT ready set up – perfect!

And after that it was off to another school in Witney, The Henry Box School. Founded in 1660, Henry Box is situated right next to Witney’s St Mary’s Church…

St. Mary's Church, Witney

…which has (I could see as I peered over the wall) some fabulous ancient-looking gargoyles, & stone angels bearing shields. I would have loved to get a chance to peek inside. No time for that, however – it was straight into the school… which has, I discovered, some very lovely old buildings of its own…

There I met librarian Nicola Patrick, who had been wonderfully active in spreading the word about the event. The talk itself – to a mixed group of Year 7s and Year 9s – took place in the lecture theatre:

And all went swimmingly except that we couldn’t get the book’s trailer to play. So if you’re a Henry Box student reading this and you haven’t seen the trailer yet, please have a look on the home page of this website – you’ll find it there!

After the talk, for anyone who wanted a book signed or just wanted to chat, there was a drop-in session in the library. It was great to meet some pupils and to have a chance to talk more with Nicola and towithLynne Cooper, who was visiting from Burford School.

Then Moira da Costa from the Oxford CBG kindly took Liz & me to the station in Oxford, where we caught a train to Leamington Spa. We had been so well looked after, both by the Oxford CBG, and by the librarians of the schools we visited during our Oxford-&-area stay, Christine, Val, Judith & Nicola. Huge thanks to all!

Next events: tomorrow in Leamington & Warwick… And the Warwick one is a public event at which I’ll be speaking alongside Nicola Shulman, author of Graven With Diamonds. I have been reading the book in snatches all tour & loving it. It’s erudite, insightful & hugely entertaining. I will enjoy my task for the rest of today, which is finishing the book. Yum yum!